Brrrrr!

What crazy weather we have been having this month! All these cold temperatures and wind are making us all so excited for spring! I think the students are ready for a consistent recess schedule too! Even with the cold, we had a great time in preschool this week. Our big focus this week was rhyming. They loved it! Rhyming can be a confusing skill for some, but the students all did a great job. They continued to keep thinking of rhyming words all week long, even when we weren't necessarily working on it.

Our letter this week was Nn and our number was 10. We have a unique way of talking about our numbers and introducing some skills they will need in kindergarten. To show our numbers we have been using small unifix cubes. So far we have counted out these unifix cubes individually to show the numbers 1-9. We call each cube a "tater tot" and the students think it's so funny. Things got a little more interesting in math this week when we worked on number 10. Now that we have reached #10, the "tater tots" now have connected all together and formed a "french fry" (again, many laughs from the students!). A "french fry" can only have 10 cubes. No more. No less. This is a fun way to introduce students to the ten stick that they will use for years to come. They are very anxious to see what happens with number 11 this coming week. Below is an example of what we have been using. The left would be a "french fry" and the right would be our "tater tots".

For small groups this week, we worked on new skills as well as skills we have already visited. Since we did lots of sorting last week, one of our small groups was one where they could apply all they've learned. We had a big container of buttons of a sizes and shapes. The students were able to sort them into groups however they wanted. Our next small group worked on our new skill of rhyming. We played a game where the students were each given a card with a picture on it. Then Miss Kaye showed the students a game mat with lots of pictures on it. Miss Kaye said the name of one of the pictures and the students had to figure out if their picture card matched the picture that Miss Kaye showed and read. Our last small group was another fun game. This game was called "Roll and Record". The students got an opportunity to work with partners for this dice game. We had a piece of paper with the numbers 1-6 at the bottom and several boxes above those numbers. The students took turns rolling the dice and then writing (or recording) their number in the box above the correct number. They kept playing until one of their numbers "won" and filled up all the boxes. It was a great way for them to practice writing their numbers!

We had another fun "Science Friday" this week! I took advantage of the cold outdoor temperatures and froze some water. To make things even more fun for the kids, I froze the water in some rubber gloves so that our ice would be in the shape of a hand. They loved it! Then we talked what the big snow plow trucks do with it's snowy and icy outside. Many students knew that they drop sand and salt so we decided to see what would happen if we put sand and salt on our frozen hands. They enjoyed seeing the hands start to melt, especially where we placed the ice.

Upcoming events:

Next week we will move on to letter Ii and #11 and begin our topic of hibernation. You should have been given a note about our Valentine's Day party in your students folder. Let me know if you'd like to come join in on the fun or if you'd like to help us with some supplies or treats. Conferences are also right around the corner on February 18, 19, and 20. Stay warm out there!!

 The pictures above show our new preschool ice skating rink! The kids loved it this week! They can skate on the plastic or pretend to sell hot cocoa at the hot cocoa stand.

 This week we put water and dishes in our sensory table. The students had fun washing the dishes with soap.

 Roll and Record small group game

 Button sorting small group

 Rhyming game small group

Science Friday! You can tell from the pictures that they were very entertained watching the salt melt the ice.

January 13-17

We had another great week in preschool! I feel like they have come back from break so ready to soak up all the information that we've been teaching them! All of the new things we've introduced like capital/lowercase letters, punctuation, beginning sounds, etc has not seemed as difficult to them as I had expected. Not everyone is ready for those more difficult skills yet which is JUST FINE for preschool but they can at least get an introduction to them. We will soon be starting small groups based on where each student's skill level is at. This way we can focus more on areas that will help them in their development.

This past week we stayed busy with lots of winter activities and also focused on our sorting skills. Early in the week we played a sorting game where I had sorted the students into groups at the front of the classroom. It was their job to figure out how I sorted them into groups (boys/girls, jeans/sweatpants, etc). They did a GREAT job figuring it out. Later in the week, I let them have a chance to do the sorting of our class and we were amazed at how they did. There was even a couple times it took me awhile to figure out how they sorted their friends into groups, but they made total sense once they explained. They loved that "game" so it might be one we do again soon!

For one of our small groups this week, we introduced a new name practice page. We will now be practicing writing out name the "kindergarten way" using lowercase letters. Many of the students have already been practicing their name this way so it wont be such a big adjustment. They did a wonderful job! Another one of our small groups was practicing numbers and counting out number amounts from 1-15. The last small group was practicing beginning letter sounds. They practiced looking for words (pictures) that started with a certain letter. To finish off the week we had another "Science Friday". This week we decided to see what happens when snow melts. The students were able to go scoop up some snow and put it in a container. Once they each got to add some snow, we brought the container inside to see what would happen. They each drew a picture of what the snow looked like at the beginning and then what it looked like after it melted. We also took a peek inside to see if the melted snow was clean or dirty. They were surprised to see some pieces of dirt in the water. Not exactly what they want to eat!

Upcoming News: I'm sure most of you saw the books orders sent home yesterday. Those will be due on Jan. 24th. Conferences will be coming up again in February. Let me or Gail in the office know if your time from last fall will not work in the spring. 

 After break we added all new songs to do each day. Here we are doing one called "Listen and Move". It's a perfect song to get us up and moving. In this picture we are "ice skating".

 We had colored rice in the sensory table this week.

 Trying out our new name pages.

 Working on the snowman beginning sound pages during small group.

 At this small group, student counted out stars to match the numbers printed on the mittens.

 Science Friday! Checking out the snow before and after it melted.

 A table full of artists! Working hard at center time.

Welcome Back!

We're back! Our preschool fun is back in full force after a long winter break. The kids were so excited to be back in school and so were the teachers. Last week was kind of a crazy one with only a few days of school because of the bitter cold. We still had time to fit lots of great stuff in! Now that we are in the second half of our school year, we are focusing even more on getting the students ready for another year of preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten next year (even though I tell them all that I love them too much to let them go ;). So we are stepping up our work with numbers, letters, etc. We added a new activity to our carpet time: a morning/afternoon message. Each day there will be a message written on the board for the class to look at and read together. In these messages, we will talk about how each letter has a sound and we we put those sounds together they make words. Those words then make sentences. We have also introduced punctuation (.!?) and capital letters only at the beginning of a sentence. It sounds like a big jump but it has been amazing how fast they have been catching on. They have searched for the three main punctuation marks in books and even in our hallways. It's fun to see how excited they get when they spot them. The period is still commonly known as "the little dot" to them, but we'll keep working on the real word for it! We're also working hard are practicing all the letters and the sounds that they make. We have a new Dr. Jean song that we're singing to help us with that. It's called "Alphardy" (it's to the tune of Jeopardy). These preschoolers are learning more and more each day!

For our small groups last week we had three new fun groups. The first group was an alphabet fishing game. The students used a magnetic fishing pole to "catch" some letter magnets. It was a great way to work on identifying letters and the sounds they make by playing a fun game. I love when they don't even know that they are learning! Our second group was a craft project to help decorate our room for this winter season. They created a snowman head by only tearing pieces of paper. It was a great fine motor activity for their small little hands and each snowman looks unique which I LOVE! Our last group was the students favorite one. They got to play with shaving cream on the table. They each got a big blob of shaving cream to spread around all over the table and play with. After a few minutes of playing, we moved on to practicing their name in it, as well as some letter and numbers. I apologize to my first guinea pig group who did not wear a paint shirt. While I'm sure they smelled great, they went home quite covered in shaving cream! Whoops!

The student just loved being back with their friends. They jumped right back in where they left off a couple weeks ago. We added some new toys and games around the room and added colored rice to our sensory table. They love when we get new things around the room! We worked on our letter Jj and the number 9. We also read some great books about snow and winter. When the weather isn't frigidly cold, we will always plan to head outside so it's very helpful when the kids have their snow pants, boots, and gloves! They are getting faster at getting everything on and all bundled up. Our gym and library schedules will remain the same. Morning class: gym-Thursdays & library-Tuesdays. Afternoon class: gym-Tuesdays & library-Friday. We are looking forward to continuing our fun in preschool!!